It’s a common scenario: you log into your business’s Facebook page one morning and BAM! You’ve come face to face with a negative review or customer complaint. Your heart sinks—you’ve spent so much time, money, and effort trying to create a strong and positive presence for your company online. And now, this one user has made your life exponentially more difficult. As a first instinct, you immediately look for the “delete” button (you can’t have that kind of negativity on your page!).
But perhaps this deserves another look. Perhaps immediately deleting anything negative isn’t the best way to go.
Yes, negative feedback tends to expose weaknesses in companies. But on the flipside of things, customers want to use social media as a way to provide …show more content…
Customer complaints are the perfect opportunity to assess what aspects of your business could improve. There are always things to improve. Take customer feedback into serious consideration, determining if this is just an issue with one customer or with many.
Never argue or make excuses. Own the situation. Even if you are certain a customer is being unreasonable, let the specifics of the situation be discussed and resolved in private. A heated public argument will almost never do good things for your online image.
Acknowledge the customer’s concerns and offer next steps. This can be done publicly, and is a good opportunity to show that your company is being responsive to feedback. This can be a comment as simple as “Thank you so much for bringing this concern to us, Jane. I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t had a good experience so far. We’d like to contact you to resolve the situation—can you private message us with your contact details?”
Apologize and say thank you. Just like many of us were taught as children, apologies and thank yous can go a long way in resolving conflicts. As in the example above, be sure to offer these proprieties to your …show more content…
However, many companies sometimes get reviews that are completely or partially erroneous or inappropriate. In these cases, though you cannot delete it on your own, you can often report it and ask that it be taken down by an administrator. Good examples of this include when the review is not for your company, when the user’s language is abusive, or if the review is factually incorrect (they mention a non-existent employee or perhaps are not even a customer of record). Take a look at the platform’s rules and regulations surrounding reviews, and if you feel a review violates those rules, report it for takedown.
Make a Plan
The last thing I’d like to touch on is the importance of having a plan to respond to customers (positive and negative) and deal with spam. Too often, there is no policy in place, causing a slowed response time and, sometimes, inaccurate or inappropriate responses.
Make sure your company has a plan for responding to the following, as they will no doubt happen:
Positive or neutral customer interactions
Spam
Hostile comments or reviews
Negative comments or
But perhaps this deserves another look. Perhaps immediately deleting anything negative isn’t the best way to go.
Yes, negative feedback tends to expose weaknesses in companies. But on the flipside of things, customers want to use social media as a way to provide …show more content…
Customer complaints are the perfect opportunity to assess what aspects of your business could improve. There are always things to improve. Take customer feedback into serious consideration, determining if this is just an issue with one customer or with many.
Never argue or make excuses. Own the situation. Even if you are certain a customer is being unreasonable, let the specifics of the situation be discussed and resolved in private. A heated public argument will almost never do good things for your online image.
Acknowledge the customer’s concerns and offer next steps. This can be done publicly, and is a good opportunity to show that your company is being responsive to feedback. This can be a comment as simple as “Thank you so much for bringing this concern to us, Jane. I’m sorry to hear that you haven’t had a good experience so far. We’d like to contact you to resolve the situation—can you private message us with your contact details?”
Apologize and say thank you. Just like many of us were taught as children, apologies and thank yous can go a long way in resolving conflicts. As in the example above, be sure to offer these proprieties to your …show more content…
However, many companies sometimes get reviews that are completely or partially erroneous or inappropriate. In these cases, though you cannot delete it on your own, you can often report it and ask that it be taken down by an administrator. Good examples of this include when the review is not for your company, when the user’s language is abusive, or if the review is factually incorrect (they mention a non-existent employee or perhaps are not even a customer of record). Take a look at the platform’s rules and regulations surrounding reviews, and if you feel a review violates those rules, report it for takedown.
Make a Plan
The last thing I’d like to touch on is the importance of having a plan to respond to customers (positive and negative) and deal with spam. Too often, there is no policy in place, causing a slowed response time and, sometimes, inaccurate or inappropriate responses.
Make sure your company has a plan for responding to the following, as they will no doubt happen:
Positive or neutral customer interactions
Spam
Hostile comments or reviews
Negative comments or